Should the milk racket ever turn sour, Dick and Eddie Robinson, the co-CEOs of Robinson Dairy, have the possibility for a sweet second act.

They could monetize the comedy routine that is their life together. They are the Abbot and Costello of whipping cream. The Laurel and Hardy of half-and-half. The Cheech and Chong of cottage cheese.

Maybe the audience will luck out, and the fourth-generation Denver natives will offer a little shtick Wednesday night when they accept the award for Citizen of the West at the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center. The annual dinner helps kick off the National Western Stock Show, and the proceeds benefit the National Western Scholarship Trust, which supports 74 scholarships for colleges in Colorado and Wyoming.

But seriously.

They are funny guys (Reporter: "How do you guys work together?" Dick: "Not very well."), but Dick, 79, and Eddie, 76, also are successful businessmen who have dedicated their lives to Denver. The award, one of the most prestigious of its kind in the West, recognizes the work the Robinsons have performed, for decades, for the sake of Denver.

"The city has been good to us," says Eddie, who sports an unruly corona of white hair. "Our father and grandfather taught us to treat people well, to do good. It comes back many times over."

So they did good.

Hospitals. Colleges. The Denver Zoo. The Denver Art Museum. And on and on and on.

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These guys, together, ran a big Denver company, but they rarely turned down an invitation to sit on the board of this or that nonprofit, to take part in a fundraising function for a worthwhile cause, to pay for college scholarships to needy kids, to give their time to organizations that could not pay for it.

"The family's generosity is boundless," says Joel Edelman, executive director of AMC Cancer Research Center in Lakewood, an organization sitting on land donated by the Robinson brothers' great-grandfather. "What you see is what you get. They won't put on an act for you."

He added: "They have great personalities and obviously love each other. It is a brother relationship that any of us would envy. Very smart, both of them. Politically involved."

Simply entering the corporate headquarters, in a modest building in a warehouse-thick part of the city near Interstate 25 and West Sixth Avenue, is an introduction to the political activity, at least, of the brothers.

There's Bill Clinton shaking their hands in different pictures, some from before he became president. Ronald Reagan. Ted Kennedy. George W. Bush. Barbara Bush. Al Gore. And so on. The framed photographs are like wallpaper, lining the foyer, the lobby, hallways.

Dick is the Republican. Eddie, the Democrat. Eddie's wife, the Republican. Dick's? "A liberal Democrat," he says, shaking his head. "Eddie took her to the Democratic (National) Convention."

Being together, but on different paths, is a Robinson brothers theme.

"I went to the Army. I went to Korea," says Dick, a big guy with a broad smile. "He went to Germany. Basic difference: They were shooting at me, and he was playing golf."

"I wasn't exactly playing golf," says Eddie.

"The hell you weren't!"

They have been together, very together, for a long time.

The brothers Robinson grew up in several houses in east Denver, and attended the same elementary school (Steck), and high school (East). All along, they shared the same bedroom.

Dick went to Colorado State University (then called Colorado A&M) first, followed by Eddie a few years later. Both lived for a while in a rooming house run by someone they call "Mrs. Case" (Eddie: "She was the greatest cook I'd ever seen." The brothers spar for a bit about when they lived there. Dick ends the conversation saying: "God almighty, I'm getting old.")

They grew up working in the family milk business, the first version of which began in 1885, and returned to it after college and military service.

Dick and Eddie bought out the business in 1963, sold it in 1967, bought it back in 1975, and then sold it again, in 1999. They remain with the company, however, as co-chief executive officers.

Dick lives in Denver, Eddie in Greenwood Village. The brothers have kids and grandchildren. One passion they both share, besides the business and philanthropy, is golf.

Eddie takes piano lessons, too.

Eddie: "I take piano lessons to keep my mind sharp."

Dick: "He can play 'Happy Birthday'."

Eddie: "I've been taking lessons for eight years."

Dick: "You've been taking lessons for eight years, and all you can play is 'Happy Birthday'?"

Eddie: "I can play more than that. I haven't even played 'Happy Birthday' for you."

Dick: "Yes, you have. Here's the deal with Eddie and the piano. He goes and takes classes, but he never practices."

He may need a teacher for the piano, but in other settings, Eddie himself is a teacher.

"He is one of the people who, when I ask for advice for how to run this organization, I pick up the phone and call Eddie," says Michael Salem, president and CEO of National Jewish Health. "He's thoughtful. He has great advice. He's always thinking of ways to help the institution."

Sheila Bugdanowitz, president and CEO of the Rose Community Foundation has observed the brothers for years, but has worked most closely with Dick, who has long been involved with Rose Medical Center in Denver.

"He can look at a balance sheet and know in a minute what is going on, and he's never afraid to speak up, in a self-deprecating, adorable way," she says. "He's a very funny man. When he took my granddaughter on a tour of the dairy, he says, 'So, do you know how we make chocolate milk? It comes from brown cows!' "

Not all kids who play baseball are uniformed with fancy script across their chests, traveling to $1,000 instructional camps and drilled how to properly hit the cut-off man. Some kids just play to play.